July is the quietest month in the garden, so it’s the perfect time for maintenance, tidying up and planning. Our garden is all tucked up with something happening in all corners…
We had a pile of biomass from the end of summer, so finally I’ve made a hot compost pile. Ingredients apart from the biomass are fresh grass clippings, used coffee grounds, egg cartons, chicken manure, Morganics fertiliser and wood chips (ours are well-decomposed – you can substitute compost or soil for this).
It’s just a matter of layering up – the order I did was grass clippings, biomass, egg cartons, coffee grounds, chicken manure, fertiliser, wood chips. I’ve got enough for 3 full layers and as I complete each layer, I add a watering can full of water (make a depression in the top so it can filter down).
Aim for 1 cubic metre in size for the best results. I cover ours with black polythene to keep it all intact and it does assist with raising the temperature for quick results. Turn after a couple of weeks and it should be ready to use a week later.
Other jobs this month are…
Pruning our grape which produced so bountifully this year – I’ll wait until towards the end of the month when all the leaves will have dropped. My severe cut back last year clearly worked.
It’s a good idea to check all your seed packets for their expiry dates and make a list of what you need to replace. Browse seed catalogues to find something new to try this summer while you’re re-ordering
It’s time to get up to the horse supplies place and bring in some new bales of straw for summer mulching
And head off to the beach to collect seaweed to make up a liquid solution to apply throughout spring and summer. Liquid seaweed helps our vegetables cope with the stress of summer heat.
Once (maybe twice!) a year I make Ripe Deli’s pumpkin cheesecake which happened a couple of days ago for a family dinner – Crown pumpkins storing a treat!
And lastly, we’ve had a few enquiries about rust on celery plants. It mostly happens when there isn’t sufficient air flow. Rainwater sits on the leaves and stalks and the rust (fungus) settles there. Firstly, cut away the affected leaves. Then we would recommend a weekly application of ‘fish and seaweed’ solution to bolster the plants. You can then either cover the soil around the plants with cardboard or newspaper so the rust spores don’t splash up onto the plants, or cover the plants themselves with a plastic cloche to keep them dry. But ideally, plant celery in a nice windy spot so that air dries the plant out in between rain showers. Prevention is better than cure, so give plants a good amount of a nitrogen fertiliser on planting and a monthly side dressing of an all-round fertiliser like our Morganics. Strong plants are less likely to succumb to rust.
Happy winter gardening!
From Jan and Rob
7 Responses
Much appreciated.Grest work.
❤️
The fast hot composting sounds amazing!! Do you need it to be sunny for such a quick turnaround?
I would say it probably helps, but not really necessary. The fresh grass clippings and chicken manure certainly activate it, and the water is absolutely important – a dry heap won’t decompose quickly. Keep it light (not pressed down) and you’ll be amazed!
I’ve planted a persimmon tree and am hoping to espalier it along the fence line. I’d appreciate it if you could do a blog about espaliering fruit trees and pip trees. I’d like to do an apricot tree too. What variery would you recommend?
Will have a chat with Rob and get back to you. In the meantime, the two sites that helped me with my espaliered pears are The Royal Horticultural Society’s post on it… https://www.rhs.org.uk/fruit/apples/training-espalier I will say that I think the pruning is a bit complicated on this site. Really, you just prune the side shoots just above a leaf to about 50-100mm. Everything else is super useful though.
And Sarah Frater at Edible Garden in Ashurst has apples (and I think pears but I can’t see them on her catalogue – but it’s where I got mine) which already have one or two rungs/tiers. They aren’t created in the traditional way of cutting out the main trunk, so that the two side branches become the next tier, rather just using the branches that exist to bend them outwards. This is a quicker way of achieving the espalier. My trees have the bottom two tiers just bent naturally, then the top two done by pruning. Have a look at Sarah’s catalogue on P6… https://ediblegarden.co.nz/application/files/1217/4532/6358/Edible_Garden_2025_WEB.pdf
Hi Marion A couple more things after chatting with Rob – he thinks a persimmon should probably work as an espalier as it’s not a huge tree. The apricot is a bit trickier – it’s a vigorous tree (not usually grafted on smaller-growing rootstock) which means it’s difficult to train; and secondly, apricots really only bear well in the cold of the South Island, so you would want to be located there. ‘Moorpark’ is Rob’s favourite apricot variety. When it gets to pruning/shaping time with my espaliered pears, we’ll see if we make a little video. In the meantime, all the best 😊